Luke B

Hiya,

I recieved my new dell dimension 9200 today and i was surprised when i opend the case for a nose about and saw that it only has a 350W PSU installed.

I dont actually know that much about the power requrements of systems but ive seen people talking about 600W PSUs for some systems and ive become a bit confused.

Was just wondering if 350W is gonna be adequite for my spec or is Dell being cheep?

My spec is as follows:

Intel Viiv Core II duo E6600 2.4Ghz
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
640GB SATA RAID 0 (2x320GB 7200rpm)
Nvidia Geforce 256MB 8600GTS graphics card
16x DVD+/-RW
48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive

Cheers, Luke

manic

Imho, thats not enough. But who am I, I would say that is cutting it
close. If its a strong psu, which it probably is, it will be ok. But with time
and age it may fall short. Maybe thats the idea, built in expiration date.

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Deleted090308

I agree with manic. A few USB devices will most likely make the system collapse.

Luke B

Really? That dont sound good if its gonna crash!!

Ill get on the phone to Dell then and have a go at them, see where i get.

Not spending 700 odd quid to have an underpowerd system!!

Thanks for your help guys.

Tumbleweed36

Luke, as mentioned by my team mates, that is not much power. What Dell does is put the very basic of everything in their units and if you want to upgrade to a better video card, or to add something to upgrade, then the power supply won't cut it. Aha, no problem they sell them at a very high price. There is also as mentioned the wear factor. A power supply that is so close to the edge in power will wear out faster than one that has a lot of power.

I doubt if it will die in the short term as long as you don't change anything out for something better, but buyer beware if you choose to upgrade or add some gadget that pulls some power.

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oscaryu1

Ever heard of looking on the 12+ rail or if its an dual/triple rail?

My mother has an BESTEC (ahh!) 250W 20 + 4pin running an 2.4 Celeron, 256MB RAM, 1x CD, Floppy, 1x scanner, 2x printer

NEVER underestimate the power of the power supply. Just turn it on.

twajetmech

Dell is being cheap ! Running our reccomeded psu calculator with your system specs (tweaked for a bit ofperformance) I came up with 505W +30% = 650W as the reccomended psu class for your system. Dell is notorious for their poor psu's, use very poor quality psu's and have high failure rates. Normally this rears its ugly head as system crashes or freeze ups and several calls to their tech dept. This is one of the reasons Dell offers replacement psu's and upgrade psu's on their site for such a high price. To the best of my knowledge you should be able to purchse either a std ATX 2.0 psu for use as a replacement or replace it with a pc power & cooling Dell replacement psu (my fellow tech team members please chime in) I would reccomend the pc p&c since you are more than likely going to want to add hdd's and upgrade at some point, your current psu would not be able to handle much additional load as other techs have mentioned. I doubt Dell is going to replace your psu unless it fails inder warenty or give you an upgraded one (they'll argue that the system is currently running without issue) However for piece of mind and a lot more reliability....its your call.

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speedster123

Dell is under the gun to reach and maintain the "bottom line"
Consumers see a $779 price or a $699, for the same-like equipment, guess what? which will they buy?

One day manufacturers will use the quality power supply as a selling tool.

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